InquilineKea

Can you manage your references and send reminder emails/add new references after the deadline? Also - if I have ADD and put in "other" as a disability, do I have to list my disability as ADD when the form asks me to describe my disability, or can I put in something else?

I know that the NDSEG sends fellowship offers at around May 1st (which is after the April 15th deadline). So then I have a question: is it possible to send grad programs notice that you won if (if you win it), and then possibly get a rejection reversed? (sort of like for the NSF) And is it possible to turn down an offer after the April 15th deadline because you got the NDSEG, which made you decide to switch schools? (it doesn't necessarily even have to be a rejection reversal - it could also be that a professor at a school that accepted you would *only* be able to take you on only if you had external funding).

Is it okay to cite academic books in the citations?

Hmm - maybe it differs from university to university? My understanding was that Brown did it somewhat differently than others. I'll have to ask though. One factor that might play a role in my advising - though - might be the fact that my advising committee is composed entirely of "outsiders" (out of the 3 members - one is leaving the school next year, one is a joint appointment, and my primary adviser isn't even in the department, but in Physics instead). Hmmm... Interesting... I'm not sure if it matters if transferred coursework matters that much though? A lot of geoscience departments have "open curricula"/no core curriculum - meaning that there are no course requirements beyond having a certain number of credits - and that any required number of credits to graduate can simply be fulfilled with research credits. Of course, I can stay for another year and get a M.S. here and then there would be no such stigma, but the advice was for me to do it this year. With that said - I have such strongly defined research interests (exoplanet climate modeling) that any adviser outside of the area would have pretty strong reservations about taking me on (since they'd fear that I'd defect on them). Also is the factor that I have a personality that is extremely unusual - I'm the type of person who people *never* forget (which has its good parts and its bad parts).

So I hear that they just got announced this year. Does anyone know how the selection criteria differ from that of NSF? And how other factors differ from that of NSF as well?

So a lot of people say that they'll distribute their research to [Conference X] or [Journal Y] in their proposed research. The thing is - do the reviewers care whether or not their research will actually make it into [Conference X] or [Journal Y], given that the vast majority of papers get rejected anyways? Also, if a citation has multiple co-authors, at which point does it become a [first author et al] citation? Oh - and yaey - are you who I think you are?

Oh okay - thanks very much for the reply. Yeah - transferring puts one in a mixed position. Earth science is one of those areas where adviser fit matters more than other factors though, so transferring *could* actually put one in a stronger position if it simply allows one to wait out a year until a prof is able to take new grad students when they weren't able to take on any new one the previous year (this is the case with one prof I'm contacting, actually). Of course, the opposite reasoning could also apply. The department does get the fellowship money from the school though, so it's not as if the department invested a huge amount into the student (though it could be that a student wasn't taken off the waiting list because of it).

Thanks for the suggestion Eigen - that's a good idea! Another question (for anyone): do the keywords mean anything at all? Do they affect anyone's chances of getting the fellowship?

Is it *very* bad if my research is something that could be done in a year? Also, how descriptive does the title have to be?

Wow - thanks *so* much for that advice! I'll remove all my bold and italics then.

Hey - I just contacted a potential adviser about NSF (he works at NASA GISS), and he sent me this message: Does anyone know if this could be an issue?

Hello everyone, I'm just wondering - does anyone here know if there are any ways to find support groups for grad students with ADD or other mental conditions? I've already asked my school's disability office but they don't seem to know of any (also, my school is undergraduate-focused). My old school has a mailing list for students with disabilities but I still haven't found anyone else with ADD Thanks!

Everyone is bailing out on my NSF essays and I'm getting kind of desperate. Since winning the NSF Fellowship is so important (almost of life-or-death importance, in fact) to me, I really would like someone to read them. Thanks so much!

Hmm - did the programs you apply to have GPA cutoffs? I'm really wondering about that, speaking as someone with very high GRE scores *and* very low GPA (due to ADD). My advisers are telling me to consider applying to MIT again but I'm not sure if MIT even looks at the applications of people with GPAs in the low 3's.

Is it a good idea to not include bold and italics in my personal statement? And to make sure that my personal statement is more professional than, say, a grad school application essay? Can it be professional and still have humor?

I'm also wondering - does the department have a more "risk-tolerant" attitude towards potentially risky grad students than other departments? I know from some sources (Quora especially) that Stanford is a school that *likes* to pursue risk more than others, although I wonder if that's mostly true for its CS departments.

I'm also curious - for those programs that do offer students 1st-year fellowships, are some of their students encouraged to at least consider the option of transferring to another school after their first year? (since they're not strongly committed to any adviser their 1st year, sometimes people learn more about each other [though at least they don't get messy!] and then they might be encouraged to transfer). And if they do transfer, are they sometimes in a stronger position when applying because of their additional coursework/experience/maturity? Since my advisers are all telling me to cast my net wide and to at least apply to transfer just so that I'll have options just in case things don't work out (which I think is a good idea, although some could see certain signals that could come out of that advice).

Oh cool - thanks very much for the information! Do you also know if admissions to each MIT EAPS program is done separately? (e.g. if PAOC admissions is done entirely differently from Planetary Science admissions?) If someone's interests overlapped considerably with both, then would one be considered for both programs?

Yeah - Usmivka was basically saying what I was meaning - when we're on a fellowship, we're not even in a "job". All we're expected to do is maintain adequate progress towards our PhD, which could just be taking classes for our first year. Usmivka - I'm actually curious - does this apply to each division within MIT EAPS or does it only apply to your division? And how long do fellowships at MIT EAPS last for? The reason I'm curious is that my advisers are actually urging me to consider applying to transfer to a different school just in case things don't necessarily work out next year (since they can't be absolutely sure if they can take me on as a student next year) - and MIT was one of the suggestions they listed, but I would be split between applying for PAOC, Planetary Science, or possibly even Geobiology. In case I do take the step though, it would be important for me to look for a school where they award 1-year fellowships since it makes it much easier for a professor to try out someone who's potentially high-risk (I have ADD and Asperger's). I am applying for NSF/NDSEG (and am obsessed with them) but there's no guarantee that I'll get them. Fortunately I'm on the East Coast now so that will make it easier for me to visit schools/potential advisers prior to applying if I end up with that route.

By "fellowships" I'm mostly talking about fellowships that basically cover all tuition + give a stipend without demanding that the student TA or do research (so they give incoming students a huge amount of freedom). I've heard that Yale and Caltech award 2-year fellowships to them all, and that Brown and Columbia both award 1-year fellowships to the majority of them. What about other schools? And is this generally specific to Geoscience, or do Yale and Caltech also tend to do this for their other students? (I know that Brown doesn't do it for their other students)

Ah I see. Yeah - I'm just not sure about the transcript thing since it would cost additional money to send the transcript to them, and I'm not sure if they would consider the info that useful. Maybe I should just email them(?)

Is it a good idea to send transcripts from your first semester of graduate study even if you don't have grades yet? (just to show them what classes you're taking)

Hey - does anyone know how competitive this fellowship is, and what they look for compared with NSF? Also, is Lawrence Livermore National Lab listed under Sandia Natl. Labs/CA - Livermore, CA?

Do you have to put your name and a title on top of each essay? Is it a good idea to do it? Or is it okay not to do it? Also, do LORs have to be a maximum length or not? Are most strong LORs 2 pages in length? Also, for the question below Graduate Courses Information *Have you COMPLETED any graduate courses at this educational institution? Do I have to list courses if I took them as an undergrad if they don't count towards grad work? And what if I took grad-lvl courses in a wide variety of different departments?

Okay thanks for the replies, everyone. Yeah - it probably is a stretch then. Regarding how applying for NSF funding interacts with grad admissions: how would checking the box "are you applying for external funding?" on grad apps affect your chances of getting into the grad programs? It might also depend on the type of program and whether admissions is done by a committee or whether it is done by whether or not there's a professor willing to take on students. Committee-like admissions is common in physics/math departments, while the "professor willing to take students on" is more common in earth science and biology departments.